starting them young

When my oldest daughter was about two years old I would constantly hear her little footsteps running across her room after she was tucked in for bed. We had read a few stories before kissing her head and turning on the closet light and closing the bedroom door. But without fail, almost every night there would be a pitter patter of her feet running across her room. And without fail, when I went up to check on her she would be back in bed, out of her covers and surrounded by books. Seuss, Silverstein, Willems, you name it. She would fall asleep hugging the blue cover of Leonardo the Terrible Monster; all her stuffed animals and dolls cast to the floor. She was so bright, she took to learning the alphabet right away and was reading just after she turned three— I Like Stars was the first thing that she ever read on her own.

Now she’s nearly a teenager and her love of reading has only grown, perhaps at a faster pace than she has. She loves Riordan, Rowling and any other fantasy realm she can dive into. She also loves non-fiction and is as quick as a whip (I have no doubt that her avid reading is a major part of her intelligence). Now she’s nearly a teenager and her love of reading has only grown, perhaps at a faster pace than she has. She loves Riordan, Rowling and any other fantasy realm she can dive into. She also loves non-fiction and is as quick as a whip (I have no doubt that her avid reading is a major part of her intelligence).

She would fall asleep hugging the blue cover of Leonardo the Terrible Monster; all her stuffed animals and dolls cast to the floor.

My youngest daughter what the opposite. She reveled in story time but was not very excited about the prospect of reading on her own. Eventually, she begrudgingly made it through Hop on Pop. She read only what was necessary for school and once told me that she wished she liked reading more. She did, in first grade, take a liking to Goosebumps and started working her way through that series. It would take her weeks to get through a book, but she was so proud of herself that it didn’t matter how long it took her to finish. The stories that she reads encourage her vivid imagination and wonderful storytelling.

With both girls we encouraged reading from a young age, and while they both read at their own levels and in their own time and they both take different things from their literary adventures I could not be prouder that both these girls find value in our mountains of books.